This invention relates to accounting systems that collect information from computer networks.
Data collection systems are used to collect information from network traffic flow on a network. These data collection systems are designed to capture one type of network traffic from one source type and deliverer the date to one application type such as a billing application.
In one aspect of the invention, a system a corresponding method for collecting data from network entities for a data consuming application is provided. The system includes a plurality of data collectors for receiving information from the network entities. Each data collector in the plurality of data collectors is associated with a different one of the network entities and produces network activity records based on the information received from the associated different one of the network entities. Also included is a flow aggregation processor coupled to the plurality of data collectors. The flow aggregation processor receives the network activity records produced by the plurality of the data collectors and aggregates related ones of the received network activity records into an aggregated network activity records.